Photo: Kinna Shaffer
Bangladeshi American designer, author, and entrepreneurNabela Noor surrounds herself with the love of family, friends, and fans. Yet, it was her female Yorkshire terrier named Norie that sensed the self-love advocate’s secret before anyone else.
“I think she knew I was pregnant before I did,” Noor, 30, tells PEOPLE alongside husband Seth Martin ahead of a routine pregnancy checkup. “The week before I knew I was pregnant, she could not get enough of me.”
“She wanted nothing more than to just be next to me and protect me and sit close to my belly, and I had no idea why,” the mom-to-be remembers. “But now I do.”
“We were going through a lot with our infertility journey,” Noor says. “We were trying to build a family, and I was going through so much heartache. I just really wanted to fill our home with lots of love. And whether it was with Norie, Aloo, and Curry, it was such a great therapeutic healing addition each time.”
Kinna Shaffer
“I actually grew up very scared of dogs,” she recalls. “Culturally, my parents raised me to appreciate dogs at a distance, you know? But then I met my husband, who had a dog at the time, and the more we would hang out, the more I would get familiar with his dog. And it ended up that I really loved these furry animals. He really helped me discover that I was a dog lover.”
Two years after their wedding, the couple got Norie.
“She’s so independent and fierce and really does not need anybody’s company to enjoy herself,” Noor says of Norie. “She’s just a really relaxed chill girl.”
Then came Norie’s two furry and a bit more rambunctious brothers — Pomapoos Aloo and Curry.
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“I was really in the thick of our infertility journey, and I had heard about how getting a therapy dog could really help with emotional support,” Noor says. “So, we were there to just get a therapy dog. But then we locked eyes with both of them.”
“I have three nieces and three nephews, and they love dogs so much, so our dogs have always just been very gentle around them,” Noor says of how her pets have experience with kids. “And when it comes to babies, they love to protect them. So, we’ve really been able to kind of see how they interact with kids and infants and babies already. That’s really comforting to see how they act.”
The only one she is a little worried about is Curry.
No matter what happens, Noor says she can’t wait for the day that her family of five turns into a family of six.
source: people.com
